Doctors Discharge Suicidal Patients to 'Pass the Buck'
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ireland edition thursday october 4 2018 thetimes.ie | no 72657 €1.50 (£1.60) IRELAND AND THE WORLD Why Dublin Paddling for the planet are superpower (in-waiting) A record-breaking bid to clean up rivers Times2 Christy O’Connor, Page 46 Children’s science centre delayed at least five years amid row Seán McCárthaigh freedom of information laws, show that Interactive Science Centre, is to be built yet to issue a tender for the project, de- higher due to the delay. Correspond- Senior Ireland Reporter the project has effectively stalled amid in part of the National Concert Hall in spite signing a 2013 agreement with the ence between the parties shows that a dispute over the original agreement. Dublin. It is expected to house 200 ex- NCSC to complete the centre in 2016. Danny O’Hare, the NCSC chairman, is Plans to deliver Ireland’s first national They show that the OPW believes it hibits including a €2 million planetari- It is understood that the duration of becoming increasingly frustrated. science centre for children may be de- has been threatened with legal action. um, attracting more than 150,000 visi- the contract will be 50 months which The NCSC has accused the OPW of layed until at least 2023 amid a row It has responded by warning the tors a year. means the centre is unlikely to open being in “flagrant and continuing” between the promoters and the Office National Children’s Science Centre Ireland is the only country in the EU before 2023 at the earliest. breach of the agreement by not advanc- of Public Works (OPW). (NCSC) that political support for the without a dedicated, interactive science The OPW is prepared to commit ing the project. The state-backed centre was to open project has waned. centre for children. The proposal has €30 million to the project but it is un- Dr O’Hare complained on numerous in 2016 but documents, obtained under Exploration Station, the National received state backing but the OPW has derstood the overall cost has become Continued on page 7, col 5 STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA; OLI SCARFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Concern over Naughten’s dinner with head of bid Peter O’Dwyer Senior Ireland Business Reporter Denis Naughten was told of potential changes relating to the last remaining bidder for the National Broadband Plan at a private dinner hosted by the businessman heading the consortium, The Times can reveal. The communications minister accepted an invitation from David McCourt, the head of Granahan McCourt, to attend a private dinner in New York earlier this year. Mr Naughten, who was in New York to address the United Nations, met Mr McCourt with officials from his department in mid-July. At that point Mr McCourt’s consortium still included SSE, the British infrastructure company, as well as Granahan McCourt, Enet and others. The consortium was the only Dancing Queen The British prime minister Theresa May danced onto the stage to Abba’s hit song before delivering her speech at the Tory party conference. Pages 20-22 bidder remaining after Eir and Siro, a joint venture between Vodafone and the ESB, walked away from the process. SSE’s withdrawal was subsequently announced at the end of July. At the dinner, the telecoms entrepre- neur reassured Mr Naughten of his Doctors discharge suicidal commitment to the project to provide high-speed broadband to 543,000 rural homes and businesses and told him that a request could be made to alter the consortium as SSE may withdraw. Actavo, the engineering services company owned by Denis O’Brien, is patients to ‘pass the buck’ one of several new partners involved in Granahan McCourt’s bid, along with Nokia, the Kelly Group and KN Group. Vulnerable at risk because staff not properly trained, says top psychologist A spokesman for the Department of Communications confirmed the details Aaron Rogan Senior Ireland Reporter suicidal patients once their medical primary problem regardless of other family’s concern that the woman, who of the dinner yesterday. He said: “Dur- problem has been dealt with. Too often issues such as drug or alcohol addic- had psychiatric problems and was ing the course of this social event Mr Doctors are discharging suicidal doctors were not equipped to deal with tion. “It is better than the current addicted to drugs, was repeatedly McCourt mentioned to the minister patients from emergency departments suicidal patients if they did not require passing-the-buck approach that hap- discharged from hospitals and acute that the department had raised issues to “get rid of the risk”, a leading psychol- psychiatric care and simply discharged pens where everyone’s just trying to get mental health wards even after she told regarding the speed with which his con- ogist has said. them instead, he said. rid of the risk,” he said. a counsellor she wanted to die. sortium was submitting required docu- Eoin Galavan, a clinical psychologist Mental health experts are calling for Today The Times reveals the details The case mirrors that of Caoilte Ó mentation to the NBP procurement and expert in suicide prevention, said Ireland to adopt a “no wrong door” of a woman from Cork who died aged 31 Broin, whose body was found in the process, and the risk of further delays. that vulnerable people are being placed framework that would require all ser- in May this year after her family said Liffey in 2016. His family said it was dif- “Mr McCourt also said that a request in danger because hospital staff are not vices to link up so that suicidal people she was discharged from an emergency ficult to get care for him because he was may be submitted to the department properly trained to deal with them. are not left without proper treatment. department despite their pleas for her repeatedly turned away from mental around a potential change to the He said doctors in emergency Dr Galavan said that a person’s sui- to be detained under the Mental Health health services as he had problems with consortium structure. In this context, departments must stop discharging cidal tendencies must be treated as the Act. Letters to the hospital show the Continued on page 8, col 5 Continued on page 2, col 3 2 1R M Thursday October 4 2018 | the times News TODAY’S EDITION Calls for report on campus Budget talks for Housebuilding Noise row over childcare cash plan ‘sped up’ doughnut shop Katherine Zappone is Leo Varadkar says that The Krispy Kreme sexual assault and violence locked in “difficult” the government is doughnut shop that budget negotiations speeding up its opened in Dublin last Ellen Coyne Senior Ireland Reporter said. She had previously backed me, I have been inundated with with the finance housebuilding week has been forced mandatory consent classes for all hundreds of letters and mails from minister to secure programme and has to close a drive Universities, students and the freshers. She said that she was holding women and girls from every part of this funding to extend the dismissed accusations through at night after government have pledged to join forces today’s forum to hear “first hand” what island,” she said. affordable childcare that it has “sat on the neighbours complained to examine the scale of sexual violence universities were doing to tackle sexual “Some people may never be able to scheme. Page 4 sidelines”. Page 6 about noise. Page 9 on campuses across Ireland. violence. speak to another person about their Mary Mitchell O’Connor, the junior The justice minister has praised Lynn experience of sexual assault, much less minister for higher education, said that Ruane, the student activist and inde- a garda. Just because someone cannot COMMENT sexual assault was “too common” for pendent senator, for starting a national report, though, does not mean they too many third level students. She will conversation about sexual violence. should be invisible. The new garda commissioner must promote be joined by Charlie Flanagan, the Mr Flanagan told Ms Ruane, who “We need a survey that goes into justice minister, and representatives recently spoke about her experience of communities, that can reach survivors a vision of reform and service for his force from the gardaí at a forum on sexual rape, that a “technical issue” was delay- in their own surroundings and translate CORMAC LUCEY, PAGE 13 violence in Dublin Castle today. ing the first national sexual violence their experiences, their pain in sharing It was reported last month that three study in 12 years. He has promised a that part of themselves into a better students had said they were sexually second Sexual Assault and Violence in understanding of the realities of sexual Trump rebuked Firms ‘must Horan set for assaulted during freshers week at Ireland (SAVI) report. The first was in violence, the barriers to accessing law University College Cork. A study by the 2002, and the government has failed to enforcement, medical and therapeutic for mockery invest in IT’ return to Mayo National University of Ireland Galway deliver on a promise to carry out a services for those abused and their President Trump’s Innovation in financial James Horan, the this summer said that 70 per cent of second one for over four years. families and how the state can do better mocking of the woman services creates former Mayo manager, women and 40 per cent of men had suf- Ms Ruane revealed that she had been and respond to these needs.” who made sex-assault opportunities but also will be put forward for fered some level of sexual harassment raped in her own home in 2010 after a Mr Flanagan said that it was claims against the poses risks that could ratification at an by the end of college.